Father Fred Zagone, the chaplain for the Marquette University Alumni Association, Foley cited the resonance of the Jesuit resolve he learned there after he was captured for the first time in Libya in 2011, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

Foley, who studied at Marquette, wrote that it was not "until my freedom was taken away from me" that those lessons fully resonated with him, Zagone said. He shared an email from Foley with more than 300 people at the vigil.

Foley was kidnapped on Thanksgiving Day 2012 while covering the Syrian uprising. The Islamic State group posted a Web video last week showing his killing and said it was in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes in northern Iraq.

Marquette president Michael Lovell told the crowd at the Gesu Church that Foley "embodied social justice," and that he was "extremely proud" to see how Foley represented the school.

Friends remembered Foley volunteering to serve as a tutor and translator as early as his freshman year.

"A lot of us see obstacles in the world and back down," Brian Roche, a 1996 graduate, told the newspaper. "Jim didn't back down. I thought of him as not afraid. But it's not as if he was not afraid - it's that when something scared him, he saw it as more of a challenge."

Remembering journalist James Foley

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Freelance journalist James Foley, of Rochester, New Hampshire, was murdered by terrorists overseas. His murder was depicted in a video posted online by the terrorist group ISIS, and was supposedly in retaliation for U.S. air strikes in the region.

The Obama administration will unveil a major climate change plan Monday aimed at a large reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the nation's coal-burning power plants, a senior administration official told CNN.